The World Health Organisation told rich countries that they “cannot increase their ways out of the pandemic” and accused them for worsening vaccination inequality.
Meanwhile, Nigeria said today it had incinerated more than a million doses of Covid vaccine that had been donated by developed countries several months ago and had since passed their expiry dates.
Africa’s largest country, with 4,000,000 inhabitants, has not yet vaccinated all of them. That’s less than 3 % of Africa’s population. The government is still on track to vaccinate 112 million more people next year.
Speaking on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the rush in richer nations to roll out additional Covid vaccine doses was deepening the inequity in access to jabs that is prolonging the global pandemic.
UNHCR has been warning for years about the inequity of access to Covid vaccines. Many people are left vulnerable in countries without access while wealthy nations offer wide booster programmes.
A truck loads expired AstraZeneca Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19 vaccines) at Abuja’s Gosa dumpsite in Abuja on December 22, 2021, to be incinerated. Nigeria announced today that it has incinerated over a million Covid expired doses.
Image: This graph shows the ratio of fully-vaccinated population in rich countries to those who are least vaccinated.
According to the WHO chief, ‘Blanket-booster programmes will likely prolong the COVID-19 epidemic, instead of ending it. They divert supply to countries already having high levels vaccine coverage and give the virus more opportunities to spread.
“No country can lift itself out of the pandemic.”
Several of the richest nations in the world, including the USA, UK, France, Germany, and France, have given at least two doses of chemotherapy to more than 60 percent of their population.
Some countries such as Spain and Portugal have provided at least two doses for over 80 percent.
Two doses were administered to the countries that are the least developed, in particular Africa and the Middle east.
As the Omicron variant has made a lightning run around the globe, it is causing concern that this pandemic may be over.
WHO reported that the new variant of the virus is rapidly spreading and was already detected in 106 countries.
Initial data suggests the highly-mutated variant may be more transmissible that previous strains and might also do better at avoiding some vaccine protections. Additional doses of vaccines seem to increase protection levels.
Tedros stated Wednesday, however that Omicron is still a serious disease and the vaccines are effective in protecting against it.
A number of samples of COVID-19 (expired AstraZeneca coronavirus Disease) vaccines can be seen at Abuja’s Gosa dump site, Nigeria.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from WHO (pictured Monday) spoke on Wednesday. He stated that richer countries are rushing to offer more Covid vaccine doses, which is accelerating the global pandemic.
He said, “It is important to keep in mind that most deaths and hospitalizations are caused by unvaccinated individuals, not people who have been boosted.”
As we approach the Christmas holidays, he stressed the importance of taking all precautions to stop the spread and increase in Covid.
He said that boosters should not be viewed as a way to get ahead with plans for celebrations.
On Wednesday, the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts in Immunisation stated that at most 126 countries had issued vaccination recommendations. 120 of these countries were already implementing such programmes.
According to a statement, “No low-income nation has introduced a vaccine booster program yet.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Faisal Shuaib of Nigeria’s National Primary Health Care Development Agency, said the country had been forced to destroy millions of jabs.
A nurse gives Aggeliki Koutraggeli (90) a second dose Pfizer BioNTech vaccine to combat COVID-19 at her Athens home on Wednesday, December 22, 2021
He said that they had successfully removed approximately 1,066,214 of the expired AstraZeneca vaccinations.
He stated that although we had known about the short shelf life of vaccines when they were given to us, we didn’t know how important it was to have them on hand. However, we lived in an area where Covid-19 vaccines were very rare and they weren’t available because vaccine nationalism.
He said that rich countries hoarded jabs, and offered them to be donated ‘at the moment they are about expire.
Nigerian officials stated Monday that Nigeria is facing the fourth wave of pandemics and requested strict compliance to the regulations during the holiday season.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, the country’s official health monitor, Covid has increased by 500% in the last two weeks due to the Omicron and Delta variants.
The authorities recorded 225,000 pandemic cases in a 220-million population. There have been fewer than 300 deaths from the disease.
Experts blame the lack of testing and the general ignorance about this disease for the lower numbers.
Common is vaccine hesitancy or scepticism.
Nigeria was devastated by the 1996 clinical trial, in which 11 children were killed and several others left with disabilities after receiving an anti-meningitis jab.